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Sallie Mae announced Monday that the company would pick up the newly required 1 percent defult fee for loans issued on its behalf or backed by its units USA Funds or NELA. The new fee was required by Congress and has been criticized as passing on additional costs to students. Sallie Mae estimated that its action would result in savings for 2 million borrowers.

The University of Akron used an undercover investigation to charge a student with selling drugs -- and thought the student was acquitted by a jury, he was sanctioned under university rules, and subsquently killed himself, The Akron Beacon Journal reported.

Paul Biancardi, the men's basketball coach at Wright State University, resigned by mutual agreement with university administrators Monday, days after the National Collegiate Athletic Association implicated him in improper payments to an athlete in his former job at Ohio State University, the Associated Press reported. The NCAA's Division I Committee on Infractions had threatened punishment against Wright State if it did not bar Biancardi from recruiting for 18 months.

The Birmingham News examined the Facebook profiles and online discussions of the three students who were charged last week with a series of arson attacks on Alabama churches. The article portrays a world in which the students boasted of their drinking and other partying exploits.

A new report on education in Europe says that the region's universities are falling behind those of the United States and Asia because of a lack of investment, The EU Observer reported.